PRVL, Vol. 3, Ch. 5: Never Miss A Beat
Summary: As the tournament picks up speed, our heroes get a chance to relax and connect with their loved ones.
Word Count: 3,567
Warnings: Family argument, a bit of implied self-hatred
(Sorry for the short chapter, but future chapters will make up for this! Promise!!)
Masterpost – Volume 1 – Previous
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BEEEEEEP!
Roman leapt out of his seat, screaming at the top of his lungs. “Yes!!! Yes, Yang!! I knew she was gonna beat them, I knew it!!”
“Wow,” Riad said. “I did not think she would be able to put up a fight against Flynt’s trumpet. That thing packs a punch.”
“That’s Yang for you! Always the biggest, strongest blondie you could ever lay eyes on!” He flopped back down, letting out an energetic groan. As soon as he was settled, he hooked onto Riad’s arm and cuddled in. “I’m absolutely ecstatic that she’s going to the finals! I can’t think of a single person left that’s deserving of the championship!”
“Not even Penny Polendina?”
Roman looked to his other side, where Thomas was shooting him an amused look. “No way!” he exclaimed. “I don’t care if she’s got those psychic swords or whatever they are; Yang could beat her no problem!”
Joan leaned forward raised an eyebrow. “What about Pyrrha?”
“Not even a chance.”
Riad chuckled. “Didn’t you say Pyrrha beat her in a match in Glynda’s last semester?”
“Shhh…” Roman reached up and put a finger to his lips, silencing him. “We don’t have to talk about that. Yang cannot be bested.”
“Uh, excuse me, did you forget that your sister is still in the fight?” Trix huffed, leaning down from the row behind to press her cheek to Roman’s.
He paused for a moment as his face heated.
“…I can think of one person who could maybe best Yang.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Next to her, Abeba nudged her with their elbow. “Come on, let him root for who he wants. Besides, you haven’t even had your match yet; we don’t know if you’ll be in the finals or not.”
Trix raised an eyebrow. “Very bold of you to assume Eve and I wouldn’t be able to take down a couple of first-years.”
“Yeah, and did you see their match against NDGO? It was a complete luck of the draw that they managed to win!” Keahi added from Trix’s other side. “STER’s going to wipe the floor with them, no question.”
Abeba leaned forward to look at her, narrowing their eyes. “Aren’t you from the same school as Team SSSN?” they asked. “How come you haven’t given them any pointers on their strategies and stuff? Help them prepare, you know?”
Keahi scoffed. “Come on, you think I actually pay attention to other people in fighting classes? I don’t know jack about them.”
Trix and Abeba immediately deflated and slumped against each other.
“Well, it was worth a shot,” Trix sighed.
“I tried.”
As the next teams filed onstage, Roman dropped his cheek against Riad’s bicep and let out a breath. Riad stared at him for a beat before taking one of his hands with his free one. When Roman looked up, he offered a soft smile and pressed their foreheads together.
“Hey,” he whispered.
Roman smiled back, but despite the red dusting his cheeks, there was pain behind his eyes. “Hey.”
“You’ve been awfully clingy these last couple of days,” he pointed out. “Is there something going on?”
He hummed and buried his face back into his arm. His eyes flicked around, and his lips pressed together; one could almost see the gears turning in his head as he thought about the words he wanted to say next.
“Are you… worried, at all, about this?” Roman softly asked.
Riad raised an eyebrow. “About what?”
“Us,” he replied. “Like… Do you worry that things are going to end soon? Badly?”
The soft smile fell from Riad’s face; he frowned, shaking his head.
“No, not at all,” he said, leaning to try to catch Roman’s eyes. “I wouldn’t be dating you if I thought that. What’s this about, babe? Where’d this come from?”
Roman gave him the quickest of glances before looking back at the battlefield. There was a moment of quiet between them; Riad didn’t rush him, despite the nerves beginning to build up inside.
Finally, he let out a soft sigh. “Anole really doesn’t like us being together.”
Riad felt his heart drop into his stomach. He opened his mouth to reply, but Roman pushed on before he could get a word out.
“We were talking yesterday morning, and he… he really thinks we’re going to hurt each other,” he continued, “As if we’re doing this just to mess with him. And, Riad, I…” He shifted to look into his eyes. “I need you to know that that is not why I said yes when you asked me to be your boyfriend; I really, truly do adore you and Anole has absolutely nothing to do with it!”
“I know,” Riad answered, having to force his words through a thick wall of emotion. “I never worried about that for a moment. I do feel the same way about you; please don’t worry that that’s why I asked.”
“I wasn’t,” Roman replied, despite the way his shoulders fell.
Riad paused for a moment, pretending he was watching the start of the next fight as he sorted through his thoughts. “…Anole really said that?”
Roman nodded. “And he implied that we dove into this without thinking… That I was being reckless.”
“You are,” Riad said. “That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s something I really like about you.”
Scoffing, Roman rolled his eyes. “Tell him that.”
“I don’t need to. You’re the only one who needs to worry about how I feel about you,” he firmly replied. “And that’s something Anole needs to learn. Not you.”
Roman slowly nodded in understanding and leaned back in his seat. “I just wish he would leave us alone,” he quietly admitted.
Riad wrapped an arm around his boyfriend’s shoulders and pressed a kiss to his temple.
“I’ll talk to him.”
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Logan didn’t know how long he sat at the ocean docks after his parents left.
It was certainly more than a few minutes, if the ebbing stinging of his eyes was anything to go by. He could very faintly hear the announcers and buzzers from Amity Colosseum far, far in the air above; at least a couple of matches had come and gone, but he wasn’t paying much attention. Not when he could watch their boat disappear over the horizon.
While he felt no obligation to see them off after they set sail, he found that he wasn’t quite ready to head back to the dorm, or the arena, or… anywhere, really. At least not anywhere that he would have to interact with people. A weariness settled in his chest just at the thought.
He knew his parents needed to go. Vacuo and its citizens needed the two of them more than he did, and the ever-persistent Grimm weren’t going to let up during a worldwide tournament that just so happened to include their son. The fact that they were even gone for a couple of days was worrying; who knows what might have happened to the people they were protecting while they were away?
Logan knew this, and yet… he couldn’t stop himself from being sad to see them go.
So here he sat, in the midst of the stench of fish and tourists bustling around, watching a boat sail away as if it could grant him a few more minutes with his family before the long wait until they could see each other again.
Someone sat next to him on the bench, and he nearly leapt out of his skin; a coffee cup was offered as if nothing happened. Logan blinked and looked up to see Thamir softly smiling at him.
“Thamir,” he dumbly stated. “What are you doing here?”
“I saw you when I came by earlier on my way to my family’s house. Didn’t think you’d still be here on my way back,” he laughed. He pushed the cup towards Logan again as he took a sip of his own. “Figured I’d get you some coffee, since it didn’t seem like you’d be leaving any time soon.”
Logan glanced at it, and then back to him. “I… thought I was the one who owed you coffee after Team AMBR’s match?”
He shrugged. “Consider it a freebie,” he said.
Logan felt the corners of his lips tug up, and he finally accepted with a word of thanks before taking a sip. It was pleasantly warm, but not scorching hot, and just barely sweet and creamy— exactly how he liked it.
“So… Did your parents head out?” Thamir asked.
Eyes flicking to the boat, Logan nodded. “They weren’t able to stay away for long. Really, they probably shouldn’t have come in the first place,” he admitted, “But… I do have to say, I am… very glad they were here, even if they did have to see our loss. Perhaps even more so for the same reason.”
“They seem cool. It was really nice to meet them,” he said. “It must be intense, having a full family of Huntsmen.”
He sighed and looked down at his cup, where his fingers idly played with the rim of the lid. “It is rather extraordinary; I’ll give it that. I’m sure Roman and Calanthe could attest to my saying that it can get a bit overwhelming at times. There’s always training and jobs to be done, and hardly any time to rest.”
Thamir nodded. “I can imagine.”
“And that’s not even mentioning the impacts of being separated for long stretches of time,” he continued. “I was fortunate in that my parents could afford to stay home and take on few jobs while raising me; my mother originally insisted upon it, and Father wanted to keep that after she was gone. It was one of the most important things to him when he and Esther began to see each other. Very few children of Huntsmen are able to have that, unless they find a stable job in one place, such as the Reptilias.”
“Calanthe’s told me about that,” Thamir informed. “Her older sister had to take care of her when their parents were on missions, and then she was on her own after she left for Haven. She said it got pretty lonely.”
“Well… I suppose it’s just another part of the job,” he quietly replied. “Another sacrifice we make for the safety of humanity and faunus.”
Thamir fell into silence for a moment, staring over the ocean. He took a deep, weary breath.
“It’s not just a sacrifice for Huntsmen.” He turned to Logan. “It’s a sacrifice for the kids, too. I know time with your family isn’t the same as a life, but… It’s alright if you grieve it. You’re allowed to, even if you know it’s worth it.”
Just like that, the stinging in Logan’s eyes was back. He pressed his lips together and tightened his grip on his coffee, trying to keep his breathing steady. A lump formed in his throat, and it was harder to swallow it away than it should have been.
The echoing of a buzzer and a roaring crowd bounced around the buildings behind them, giving him just enough of a distraction to ground himself. He took a calming breath as music began to play.
Thamir bumped his shoulder against his. “You know… I remember you making a pretty hefty sacrifice a few weeks ago,” he said.
Logan frowned and raised an eyebrow at him. “You do?”
“Well, it wasn’t as big as leaving your family behind or anything, but it was still something you gave up to be ready for anything.”
“What was it?”
He pointed his thumb at the streets behind them. “The Vytal Festival Ball,” he stated, giving Logan a half-smile.
Logan scoffed and rolled his eyes. “That was not a hard decision to make,” he huffed. “Our missions were far more important.”
“Would you have gone if it was a different night?”
He blinked and looked at Thamir, who simply watched him with a soft curiosity on his face. Logan took a moment to consider the question before opening his mouth.
“I… do not know,” he admitted. “The chances would have increased, of course, seeing as the date was the main reason I chose not to attend, but, well… I still would not have had any preparations as to what to expect. I still don’t know how loud or crowded it would have been, nor how overwhelmed I would become.” Huffing out a weak laugh, he added, “I don’t even know how to dance, to be completely honest with you. For all I know, it would have been a disaster.”
Thamir hummed. “So… What you’re saying is, in two years, when we have the next Vytal Festival…?”
“I would not be able to tell you if I would go or not,” Logan finished.
Thamir nodded, and then he set his coffee to the side, getting to his feet. He turned and held a hand out to Logan.
“Well,” he said, “I can help you with one of those worries, at least.”
He furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”
“Let’s dance.”
If he’d had any coffee in his mouth, Logan was sure he would have choked. “W-What?”
“Yeah!” he laughed. “C’mon, I’ll teach you how. We can start small.”
Logan stared at him, frozen in place; after a moment, he let out a breath and took his hand.
“Well… Alright.”
He set his drink aside as Thamir pulled him up, taking both of his hands and holding them an arm’s length away. They started to sway to the music echoing through the area.
Though I can’t find what to say, I know that you’ll hear me If you’re in this game I play, I can tell you when I need you more…
Logan couldn’t help but chuckle as Thamir started getting more and more invested in the song; his shoulders moved, and his head bobbed back and forth. Thamir caught him watching and laughed, yanking Logan’s arms forward and back to the beat.
“The more you get into it, the more fun it is!” he exclaimed. “Try it!”
He rolled his eyes, but the smile didn’t leave his face as he attempted to copy Thamir’s movements. When he beamed, he couldn’t help but notice his face warming.
“I feel ridiculous,” he said.
“A step in the right direction, then,” he replied.
Thamir took a step and began to lead them into an achingly slow rotation around each other. Logan stumbled a bit at the first step, but was quick to follow. When they made it around a full circle, Thamir pulled one hand away and lifted their connected hands, taking Logan through a careful twirl.
Taking both of his hands again, he smiled. “You’re getting the hang of this pretty quick.”
Logan grinned.
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Virgil threw his fist in the air and let out a cheer, nearly throwing his scroll out of his hands. “I think that’s the best score I’ve ever gotten!”
“There’s platinum?! I thought gold was the highest one!” Patton yelped.
“Nah, not even close. There’s a diamond tier, but you can only get it when you play a level on Multi-Extreme mode,” Virgil replied. He turned to Patton and reached across the space between their beds, holding his scroll out. “You sure you don’t want to give it a try? It’s pretty easy to get the hang of, even if you don’t know the music.”
Patton shook his head and waved him off. “It’s okay, really. I’m having more fun watching you!”
Virgil shrugged before looking back to his desk, where a rented gaming console projected his score. “Alright. Just don’t think you’re going to make it through break without playing a round with us. Ever since I showed him the game, Dad won’t let a person into our house without making them compete."
“Your dad plays Rhythm Hell?” Patton asked with a laugh.
He scoffed, rolling his eyes as he looked through the game’s available songs. “Dude, you have no idea. He dedicates a solid two hours every Saturday to touch up his skills.” A grin formed on his lips. “Any time we have a family event, he brings it along, and there’s a whole competition— he and Papi’s mom are, like, mortal enemies because of it. It gets intense.”
Patton grimaced. “Oh… Is she… Not a great person?”
“Huh?” Virgil frowned and looked at him, brow furrowed; when he realized what he was asking, he sucked in a sharp breath and waved a hand at him. “Oh, no, no! Not like that! Abuela’s really cool, she’s really chill usually! She just gets competitive like Dad does when it comes to video games. But it never gets aggressive, don’t worry.”
A sigh of relief tumbled out of him. “Good. Okay.”
Virgil offered a soft smile before turning back to the game. “Yeah, you won’t have to worry about anything like that when we’re on break,” he said. “We do have plans to head to Argus for a reunion, but no one is gonna be anything bad. Everyone’ll be excited to meet you.”
Finally settling on a level, the two settled into a relaxed silence. Heavy guitar and drums played through the speakers, just loud enough to hear, but quiet enough to not disturb the others in their hall. Patton watched as Virgil’s face dissolved into concentration; when the artist began to sing, he shifted and lay on his stomach, resting his chin on his arms.
“I am weak; can’t save myself, from my own flaws…”
“Can’t you see, I can hurt you…?”
An grin started to form on his face as he listened to Virgil’s soft singing. He buried his face in his arms to hide his huff of laughter.
Apparently, it wasn’t quiet enough.
“Are you making fun of me?” Virgil asked, no bite to the accusation.
Patton giggled. “No! It’s cute!”
A scoff rang out. “I’m not cute! I’m edgy.”
He bit his tongue to keep his argument back, not wanting to ruin whatever score he had at the moment.
There were a few more seconds of silence before Virgil’s humming resumed. Patton beamed and pulled his face up, turning to look at the screen, but sunlight glinted off of a picture frame behind it and dragged his attention away.
The photo showed a much younger version of Virgil nestled in the middle of their four-person family at a professional photo shoot. He was dressed in an outfit that Patton couldn’t dream of Virgil ever agreeing to today; a gray button-up, black dress pants, and a soft, purple sweater vest. His hair was short and spiked up, and his grin wide and front-toothless, but there was no mistaking it was him.
His younger sister sat next to him in a lavender blouse with puffy sleeves and light blue tights. Her hair looked like it might have been styled into a nice set of low pigtails at some point, before being ruffled and tumbled around. She and Virgil held each other’s hands tight.
On either side of them were their dads, looking exhausted but proud. Their matching white dress shirts were a bit wrinkled. They each lay a hand on one of their children’s shoulders, and a close look to their Papi’s arm revealed he was seemingly holding Crina in place.
Despite the frame of the photo looking relatively modern and clean, the actual photograph was worn and faded at the edges. A couple of creases circled what had once been their family. It was the only crooked one of three hanging on the wall, between one of Virgil and Chao at a graduation and another of their team in the cafeteria, taken early in their first semester.
Patton’s eyes drifted over to his own bare walls above his desk, looming over the clutter and mess below. His scroll sat on the corner of a stack of textbooks; it blinked with a silent unread message notification. He made no move to get up and check it.
On the shelf above, a picture frame lay face-down.
“Let it latch to the hope that I’m controlled…”
He glanced at the scorched handprint stained to the door frame. Guilt and shame built up in his stomach before he could tear his eyes away. He gripped his forearms tight until a dull ache began to make its way through the muscle.
“I’VE GOT A MONSTER IN ME; IT’S TEARING THROUGH MY HEART!”
Patton just about jumped out of his skin as Virgil began to scream-sing along to the music, leaping up onto all fours and staring at him with wide eyes. Virgil either didn’t notice or didn’t care, as he only continued and started to dance along.
“It won’t stop ‘til it breaks free, so make it stop before it starts!”
Forcing himself to release his breath, Patton lowered himself back into a sitting position and watched. Virgil’s score began to go down as the beats flew by unnoticed. His eyes squeezed shut, and a grim formed on his face around the lyrics. He lifted his hands into fists and bounced them to the rhythm of the drums that were practically shaking the speakers of the gaming console.
Patton huffed out a little laugh before glancing back at his scroll.
The light wouldn’t stop blinking.
I fear the monster in my soul, I fear the monster in my soul, I fear the monster in my soul, I fear the monster…
